Lunatic Fringe - Mud Madness

Heather always seems to get the good weather. Well good weather for me, not a race promoter. The weather in April has been more like January weather with freezing temps and even snow on race morning. Some parts for the metro got 3 inches of snow. A perfect day for the Lunatic Fringe Duathlon :-)

As some area events were cancelled due to the conditions, the Lunatic Fringe went on as planned. About 70 racers showed up to battle the snow, rain, mud and each other on the trails of Smithville Lake.

I was feeling good this morning. Mainly because I didn't have much to worry about and only had to help setup the transition area, run course and finishing area. Usually I am so tired come race time that I have a poor performance. But today my legs felt good.




The first run I kept a good pace. I was about 30th overall, but I knew I would be faster that most in the muddy conditions. After a quick transition I started passing others. That was until I ran into the leading women rider. I should say crashed into. Leeann went down just as I was passing her and I t-boned her bike Ended up breaking a front spoke on her pedals.

After my little mishap I just put it on cruise control and slowly rode steady. The conditions were very slick and if you went to fast you went down. However you did have to ride fast enough to keep "on top" of the mud and not bog down. By the 1/2 point I had worked my way up to 5th overall. I still had about 4 min to close down on the leaders due to my slow run, but I was making good progress.






At points I was wishing I was on a geared bike. Every time we hit some double track or a short road section I was spinning like mad. I must have been over 175 rpm. I was still making progress and caught up to Tony Raboin at about the 6 mile mark on the bike. Once I got by him I set me sites on Juraj Trubiroha. I had just caught him when we came to a spot of the course that had been marked wrong. I had to stop and move the tape and open the correct trail. The first three riders luckily went the correct way, but I knew most others would not. This lost me about a minute of time. I went as hard has I could and finally caught Juraj in the rather fast muddy spot. As I yelled to go past he tried to block me and went down taking both of us with him. Man I was pissed to say the lest

I ended up finishing the bike in 3rd place overall. I had the second fastest bike split with a 54:27. Just 2 miniutes off Shad's fastest bike slit of 52:55. Give me back the time I spent fixing the course and Juraj taking me out and I may have had the fastest bike split. Speaking of bike spits. The course was hard. Some riders took over 2 hours to finish the bike leg.

Once on the run I put it on cruise control again. I had wasted my legs afterJuraj took me out (did I mention that before.....) trying to make up time and they were very heavy at this point. Both Juraj and Rabion was able to run me down during the final 2 mile run (Run was actually 1.8 miles but don't tell anyone). I still ended up winning the Male 40-49 age-group and taking 5th place overall. Not bad for an old man riding a single speed like myself.